Feel I have a shot here, but it needs something

[GB1]

Here's two renditions of a model shot I took about a 3 or 4 weeks ago. I like the shot but feel the sunlight's a bit intense and that it feels a bit unfinished. Ideas on what to do? Note that these shots have almost no PP yet.

Thks for taking a look!

G

[starriderrick]

First off... I like the pose! In color. My monitor shows very natural skin tones, I honestly think warming this up may or may not help.I'm nowhere close to "seeing" what might improve this but, very interested to learn more.
Quite a pout she's got going there. :O)

Rick

[jetrim]

This has SO many good elements coming together. I played with it for about 1/2 an hour, if this is TOO radical a departure, let me know. If not I'll list the adjustments.

[LeeIs]

I like Jetrim's edit as far as colour pp goes, I think the new angle is also improved. Also, the thing that takes away from the original for me is the fact that the lower portion of the body is cut off.

[AgingEyes]

I like the perspective of jetrim's repost, but I don't think the original needs a major enhancement in colors and contrast. It can use some though. In the original, you crop very near to the knee joint and that's not very good in general. Jetrim's better in that regard. If you do not want to rotate the image as much as jetrim did, then I would suggest rotate it so that the edge of the pool is parallel to the frame. I hope you have enough room for that

[GB1]

Hmmm. Thks all. This is interesting.

Rick, I like that pout too. She has the moves to be an excellent studio model with nothing around her but her and her expressions ! I've played with it, including a warm variation .. seems close. She doesn't have a natural tan, so perhaps this particular scene will only go so far?

Here is the original shrunken to 800 pixels, but with added warm tone. Not sure ..

Jim, shoot the adjustments. I like the tilt !! and like Rick suggested, the warmer tone has its virtues. I do see some distortion creeping in there though, esp on the highlights (it's more noticeable on my home computer, so depending on what monitor you use it may not even show on yours). I agree -- a lot of great elements, but somehow the whole isn't equaling the parts .. hm.

Liban - So true !!! You would not believe how I was trying to get as high as I could possibly get so to get as most of her as I could in the frame, I was standing on a side table that was not made to support 155 lbs, made the model and my friend nervous (I actually did slip off it once).

Alas, this is what I have to work with. Oh and did I mention that the model almost burnt to a crisp in the sun as I was trying to stand up and get the perfect shot? The sun was really brutal that day, but she really hung in there.

AE, I agree with the crop. Not the best of places, if there are any good ones. I should be able to do a little rotation like you said, though without cloning I will be limited. Jet spend 1/2 hr on his version and I have played with it about the same amt of time: this one may be one that requires a lot more. I think a few contrast/color adjustments are needed, btw .. this puppy seems to contrasty to me.

Here's the full size image (with some extra warmth) and also an outline version I did while playing around - GB

[jetrim]

Jim, shoot the adjustments. I like the tilt !! and like Rick suggested, the warmer tone has its virtues. I do see some distortion creeping in there though, esp on the highlights (it's more noticeable on my home computer, so depending on what monitor you use it may not even show on yours).

First thing I did was to open a new blank image of the same dimensions.
Paste the original as a new layer and rotate.
Bump the contrast by 15 - no brightness adjustment.
Extended the towel, leg, and pool coping with clone brush.
Select (point to point/feather 5px) cloned area of leg and applied blur (average) to smooth out inconsistencies from cloning.
Select (point to point/feather 1px) water and paste - mirroring back and forth so ripples lined up, then touched up w/ airbrush
*If someone were seriously interested in this shot, I'd completely replace the water with that of another shot taken at the same time.
Applied warming filter - don't know if photoshop has this, but it can be easily replacated by adding a new layer @ 10% opacity painting with the following: R-255 G-218 B-173 and blending in overlay mode.
Touched up/accented with dodge and burn brushes with varying widths and very low opacity (5-10%)
White balance adjustment and unsharp mask at a very tight radius, strength set to 40 and clipping set to 3.
Finally, used sharpen brush on sunglass lenses to make the reflections stand out more.

The mild distortion is most probably a result of the boosted contrast, but at the same time the contrast allowed for much easier cloning as I didn't need to take as much care in matching towel fibres and pock marks in the coping. It was a trade off to save time.